


Mad

by deathwailart



Series: The Courts [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Banshees, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Character Study, Gen, Magic, Scottish Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-27
Updated: 2012-07-27
Packaged: 2017-11-10 21:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/470668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>30 days of writing challenge: mad</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mad

It's easy for her kind, so very easy and there are stories about it if you listen to the right people who tell the stories in the family pub, the other fairies who know all the stories, all the things that deal with death that knows the ins and outs of their domain and the beings that operate within it. A banshee's lot is death, all the grief of the world around her thrust upon her when she's young, a grief so sharp, so potent that it hurts, that it kills them young. To have the grief of strangers is harder than having the grief of someone close because you do not begrudge your loved one their grief but what is worst is that the grief she has been handed is not only hers, it belongs to all those who have come before her, accumulating down the years from centuries ago when The Morrígan first seeded their line as with all the others that have ever been.  
  
The days when the pain crawls up her spine to take up residence in the back of her skull are the worst, when it feels as if something is inside and scraping, clawing, trying to force its way out where nothing will relieve the pressure, magical, mundane or anything that falls between the two. She has tried and she hates her mother for appearing untroubled by it, the sort of effortless acceptance somehow allowing her to go on whereas Shirley feels as though she's drowning and barely keeping her head above the water. She can't accept that this is it, that there is no choice but to feel it, that just makes her grind her teeth and want to shriek for entirely different reasons. The howl, the death wail, the keening, whatever people call it now when they're talking about things they will never understand, is exhausting, warning someone and irrevocably binding their grief to her person. The pressure is gone, the pain is gone but grief soon takes root and has her in bed wishing the world would just end, a malaise she can't shake. It governs her life. All banshees have small circles of friends because it allows for too many questions when the Veil that shields the supernatural and the normal must be maintained save for accidents or bringing someone in the way her mother brought in Shirley's father when he married her or when she gave birth to Shirley's twin who has no magic at all. The way Shirley thinks she brought in Blair who she wants to remove but can't.  
  
Sometimes she wonders what would happen if she didn't use her careful plans for the future that she divulges to no one to get her through the bad days (well, the really bad days, the days where she can't even cry, doesn't want to move or breathe from the hurt, the _ache_ in her bones.) It would be the end of her line if she went mad. Men never pass it on, it's only mother to daughter until a line finally comes to an end but like others, even the efforts of banshees past to stop it has not worked. There are always daughters and Shirley wonders why she tries to fight fate when it's been proven that so many others (better than her, stronger and wiser from their time, not weakened by so much bloody grief) have tried and failed to do so. Maybe that's what the Shades are, the things in Otherworld that look like a woman if you _look_ for the woman, the things that dog her dreams, reaching for her with clawed arms and hands of shadow, a terrible void of a mouth moaning, always grasping for something that she does not have, something she cannot (or is it will not?) give them.  
  
It would be so easy though. Having to try is hard. Having to force herself up and out of bed is hard. It's why she's so cruel to the people around her that she pushes and pushes and pushes at until they can take no more and leave. She doesn't want them to see her at her most vulnerable, Cassandra, her one true friend in all of this sees all the ugly parts, listens to Shirley when she screams and raves or just complains, the same tired old gripes she's had for years. Every day she puts on her face and acts like an ice queen, haughty and an elitist; what would people think if they knew she was in pain all the time, soldiering on through it all as bravely as she can but it makes her sick when she thinks about it. She doesn't want their sympathy and she damn well doesn't want their pity.  
  
But still the thought lingers as she tries to plan the future, reaching out to the Cù Sìth granted to her, of what will be asked of her in exchange for one day changing her fate. Her in this world and not Otherworld, twisted beyond recognition, only grief and hurt and rage and nothing more, haunting all those who will follow after her and her family. Some days, it seems like a better prospect than anything else, she can never decide if that's sad or not.


End file.
